Botturi Retains Overall Lead of Africa Eco Race After Curtailed Stage 7

Botturi headed into the seventh stage of the Africa Eco Race (AER) with a commanding 15-minute and 30-second lead over Jacopo Cerutti after winning his third special of the rally in sensational fashion. The two riders have been a class above the rest of the field, and the rally is boiling up nicely into an epic two-way battle for victory, with the lead changing hands every day and less than three minutes separating them for the first five days before Botturi’s Stage 6 victory.

Determined to protect his lead on Stage 7 and faced with one of the trickiest stages of the entire event, the 48-year-old came out fighting, despite being faced with leading out the 392 km special as competitors took on the fearsome dunes of the Sahara. The vast expanses of nothingness in the Mauritania desert, with no useable landmarks to guide the competitors, made navigation particularly demanding, and the Italian was pushing hard when he made a small error at around the 100 km mark and found himself a few kilometres off track.

The experienced Botturi again showed incredible fortitude, patiently retracing his steps before pushing hard to recover the time he had lost. He was flying through the desert on his Ténéré World Raid GYTR and making time hand over fist, but due to a serious accident, the rest of the stage was neutralised from the refuelling point at 241 km.

Despite this, he still leads the overall classification by four minutes and 39 seconds, as the 16th edition of the AER turns into a dramatic, nail-biting fight between the duo with hardly anything to separate them and a gap of over one hour and thirty minutes over the third-placed rider.

With just five days left in the race to Dakar, Stage 8, the first of two loops from the Bivouac in Amodjar is next.  It consists of a 351 km special through an iconic and historic region for African rallies, once again featuring the infamous Saharan dunes, as well as soft sand and rocky tracks. The route sees entrants traverse the Adrar plateau and head toward Ouadane and its famous eye of the desert before returning to the bivouac in preparation for the second loop stage on Thursday.

Alessandro Botturi – P1 Overall – 23h34m27s
Ténéré Yamaha Rally Team
“Today was always going to be tough. I wanted to ensure I held onto the overall lead, but leading out on one of the most challenging specials of the entire rally was not easy. I made a small mistake and pushed as hard as I could to make the time back up, and I managed to maintain a gap at the top of the general classification. Some things are more important than racing, and my thoughts are with everyone involved in the accident.”

Marc Bourgeois
Ténéré Yamaha Rally Team – Team Manager
“Firstly, everyone in the Ténéré Yamaha Rally Team is thinking of those involved in the accident, and we wish them all the best and a speedy recovery. Alessandro had a very tough task ahead of him today, as he was leading one of the toughest stages of the rally. Navigation would always be an issue, and a slight error saw him lose time, but once again, he showed his true character to fight back superbly and limit the damage to his lead. We have five stages left to go, and tomorrow Alessandro will have the advantage of starting down the order, so we aim to push hard and ensure we complete the first loop stage with his lead intact.”